Raining hard on Espiritu Santu….

So… I am back in ‚civilized‘ areas. 😉 This morning Aurelie made me a wonderful banana-pumpkin pancake for breakfast. Then I got ready to go to the airport. Well, the name ‚airport‘ in this case is kind of exageration since the actual airport burned down and there is a small chamber for check-in and another small booth for paying the departure tax. I had already signed the guest-book of the Nachambel Bungalows but when I paid the departure tax they made me sign another one asking what I had done during my stay on Malekula. A lot of people were waiting for the plane and it started to rain so hard that I was thinking about getting my undervest out of my (already checked in) dive-bag to protect my backpack from the rain while boarding. There is no security check on any of the domestic flights in Vanuatu. And the checked in bags waited with the people who mostly were no passengers after all. The plane this morning was a 20-seater and again the departure was much earlier than it should have been according to the flight-schedule. Upon arrival in Luganville on the island of Espiritu Santo I was supposed to be met by the resort but they didn’t show up. So I took a taxi and now I have to wait for the manager to get the taxi fare back. The taxi was relatively expensive and since I already paid for the transfer I don’t want to get them off the hook by just saying nothing.

I will re-start now with pics from Tanna since today I probably won’t do anything here. Raining too hard… but I am going to appreciate the second warm shower in ten days while the pics are uploading… 🙂

Ooops, the all were included in one go so I have difficulties adding comment. Was not my intention. But enjoy the pics… 😉 The first one is Emile, Werry’s son (I think). The lady ringing the bell was calling everyone to mass. And everything else is ’normal life‘ on Tanna. The one with the little boy on the leaves in the custom village was really strange: the men put together the leafes by just putting one over the other and afterwards that sort of held the boy. I haven’t figured out how this works yet…

Ah, and yes, the Banyan Trees… most of the  Banyan Trees in tanna must be hundreds of years old. There are male and female trees. The females have more roots, the roots of the male trees are much harder and are being used for building.